England Fell
by Edhla
Summary: When Mrs Hudson dies unexpectedly, Sherlock and John are left trying to deal with the loss their beloved landlady. *Season 3 AU*
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N –_**_This is the eighth multi-chapter in a Season 3 AU series that starts with After the Fall. Full information is in my profile._

* * *

The telephone screamed for attention in the grey light before dawn.

John, only half-awake, reached out blindly to where it lay on the bedside table, wrapping his fingers around it awkwardly. With one eye open, he checked the caller ID and was not in the least surprised to see that it was Sherlock.

_Probably some breakthrough about the Borley arson case, _he thought. He sat up with a groan and glanced over at the alarm clock, noting the time: eleven minutes past six. _Up at this hour? He's been at it all night._

"What is it, Sherlock?" he mumbled into the phone.

There was a tense pause on the line, like the moment before a thunderclap.

"Sherlock?" he persisted more urgently, remembering a litany of past incidents where Sherlock had called him but not been capable of talking. "What's up?" _Please don't tell me you've managed to poison yourself with another one of your bloody experiments._

"You need to come over," Sherlock ground out roughly, like he was trying to talk through a mouthful of jagged rocks. "Mrs. Hudson is dead."

John sucked in a sharp, painful breath, as if he'd been punched in the chest. "Oh, my God," he croaked. _"__What?"_

As he waited for Sherlock's reply, he felt, vaguely, a warm hand in his. Molly was now sitting up beside him. He squeezed her hand, rubbing his thumb along hers; but he couldn't look at her face. Not yet.

"I'm quite sure," Sherlock said, a little tremor breaking his baritone. He took a breath. "Two or three hours ago, I think, based on..." He trailed off for a few seconds. "I tried to wake her up. I..."

"Sherlock," John said sharply, releasing his hand from Molly's and pressing the heel of it against his eye as he tried to take it all in. "I swear to God, if you're kidding... if you're exaggerating... if this is a trick, just a trick to get me to come over for some stupid experiment..."

The line went dead.

Throwing the phone onto the mattress, John got up. He grabbed yesterday's shirt, pulling it on automatically and trying to make his numb fingers fasten the buttons. Molly watched him, the coverlet scrunched up in her hands. He met her gaze for the first time, and saw the fear in her dark eyes.

"What's happened?" she asked softly.

For the first time, John found himself frustrated nearly to the point of fury that he had a family to think about at a time like this.

"Please don't ask just yet." A weasel tactic, and he knew it; but the last thing he wanted to deal with just now was Molly's reaction. Or the slow process of getting Charlie into a car seat she hated, with no breakfast and a wet nappy. "Just please, get up, get dressed, and get Charlie organised," he said, trying to keep control of the tremor in his voice. "I'll call you. I - I may need your help later."

He leaned across the mattress, kissing her without even really looking at her. Then he rushed out, taking the stairs three at a time; and for the first, last and only time in his life, John Watson left the house barefoot.

~~o0o~~

The street door to the flat was locked, and John knew that ringing the bell or even knocking would be a waste of time. He fumbled to unlock it, finally elbowing the sticky jamb open and nearly pitching headlong into the hall. Sherlock sat in the padded wicker chair, one long leg crossed over the other, looking blankly across at the shelf of little china cups that Mrs. Hudson kept there.

John stopped dead. Sherlock was so white and clammy that it crossed his mind that he might be bleeding. He wore the same expression John had seen on Mycroft's face the Christmas before, after he'd been attacked: Sherlock Holmes had completely checked out. His mobile phone lay on the other side of the passage. It was smashed into pieces, and a jagged scar on the wallpaper above revealed why.

"Sherlock..." John made himself say, flinching as his own voice broke the silence.

Sherlock looked up at him, blankly at first, then frowning as if he'd only just recognised him. "In there," he said, pointing to the door of Mrs Hudson's flat.

John had never before been in Mrs. Hudson's bedroom. She'd made much of telling "her boys" that they were welcome in her flat any time they had a mind to visit, but she'd always kept that door modestly shut. Even with his heart still thumping so hard it hurt, John felt a twinge of guilt as he turned the door handle and opened it, as if he was violating her privacy.

Mrs. Hudson's bedroom was everything John would have expected it to look like – rose-patterned wallpaper, dusky-rose carpet, muslin curtains and a rail-framed bed of white enamel and brass, spread with a satin coverlet of pink and white.

Sherlock had tucked that coverlet around her.

John looked at Martha Hudson's still, serene face, and there he saw the seal of death.

His thoughts flew to the first time he'd seen that seal, at the funeral of his grandfather. He'd been seven years old, and frightened by those ashen features, with the sculpted cheekbones and the intractable mouth that would never again smile or scowl. But his mother had taken him gently in her arms and comforted him. _It's all right, John. That's what you look like when God gives you a kiss and welcomes you home._


	2. Chapter 2

John stood just outside the open door of Mrs. Hudson's flat, leaning against the wall behind, arms folded. An adapted kind of parade rest. Neither of them spoke for a full minute.

"Yeah, you know what," John finally said hoarsely, rubbing one side of his stubbly jaw. "I have no idea what to do now."

Sherlock opened his mouth to remind John that he was a former career soldier and a current bloody _doctor _who regularly investigated homicides. It was completely absurd that he didn't know what to do. Clearly, they should...

He had no idea what to do either. Mrs. Hudson was beyond a doctor's help, and the police were only brought in for a suspicious death. This wasn't one. Her front door had been locked and he'd found her in bed, as if sleeping. No sign of violence or any hint of foul play.

"What happened?" John asked.

Sherlock stirred and tried to connect the morning's events into some semblance of chronological order. "Violin," he said flatly. "I was thinking. Normally Mrs. Hudson objects to my playing this early, either by coming up to the flat or hitting a broom on her kitchen ceiling. She didn't this time. I thought this odd. I shouted. She didn't answer. I came down and knocked. Then I opened the door with the key and came in. Tried shaking her. Unsuccessful." He cleared his throat twice. "Checked her pulse. Negative. Then I called you."

"Right." John uncrossed his arms and swallowed heavily, as if forcing himself into action. "Uh, look. Stay there, okay?"

John disappeared back into Mrs. Hudson's flat; after a minute or two his voice floated out from behind the door. Sherlock wondered if he'd lost his grip on the reality that _Mrs Hudson is dead _and was... talking to her. After a second or two, he dismissed the idea. He was on the phone, notifying Mrs. Hudson's family. Notifying _Anne._

Sherlock didn't even know what the woman's surname was. He had never thought to ask, because he didn't care. Mrs. Hudson had rarely mentioned her sister. She lived somewhere in Hertfordshire and rarely came over, except for Christmas and the odd foray into what Mrs. Hudson referred to as "sisterly time." She was Mrs. Hudson's closest living relative.

A hesitant little squeak interrupted his thoughts. Sherlock startled, looking up to where Smudge stood dithering in the doorway of the flat as only a cat can. She blinked at him with her huge orange eyes.

He stared back at her, just as immovable.

After a few seconds of this stand-off, Smudge padded forward daintily and nosed the smashed mobile phone near Sherlock's feet. Sherlock looked down at it, wondering whose phone it was, and what had broken it. A mystery that could wait.

He stood up slowly, limbs aching as if he'd just run a marathon through concrete. Hand splayed against the wall for support, he made it to the foot of the stairs and then mounted them, climbing one at a time, gripping the rail with white knuckles.

Reaching the landing, he stood for a second stood in the doorway of 221B. The flat was exactly the same as he'd left it, even though the entire world beyond it had changed. He glanced over at where he'd casually thunked the Stradivarius down on the sofa just seconds before he'd got up to see why Mrs. Hudson's flat was a dead calm in the middle of Pisendel's Sonata in A Minor, a piece she didn't much care for in broad daylight. When he'd last held that violin, he thought, his worst problem had been trying to work out exactly how he was going to mount a case of attempted murder against Harry Price. Mrs Hudson had been alive...

But she hadn't been alive, and Sherlock didn't need a coroner to confirm that. She'd been lying dead in her bed, approximately underneath his hall floor. She'd died on her own, and she'd been lying dead on her own for about two hours while he drank tea and played the violin and muttered to himself and smoked three cigarettes.

He shuffled over to the medicine cabinet, opening it and blinking stupidly at the contents for what felt like half an hour. Finally, he pulled out the generic-looking white packet of painkillers he hated so much. Well, he was in pain now. And more than that, he knew for a fact that these things turned his brain into a conglomeration of cotton wool. He didn't want to think just now, about Mrs. Hudson or John or anything else.

He swallowed four of them without water and stumbled down the corridor toward his bedroom.

~~o0o~~

Sherlock had no recollection later of even getting to the bed. He was next aware of John shaking him, fingers digging into the tender part of his shoulder. His voice seemed to come from a long way away, like the end of a football field or a hundred leagues under the sea.

"Sit up, mate," he was saying, gently pulling him upright. The cotton wool in Sherlock's head threw his centre of gravity off, and his head lolled forward. John patted his cheek lightly, then put something smooth in his hand and curled his fingers around it. Heat bloomed underneath his fingertips.

"What's this...?"

"Just tea."

John's tones were factual and unaccusing, but Sherlock burned with resentment that he couldn't smell tea from coffee when it was in his _bloody hand_ and somehow, this was all Mrs. Hudson's fault for dying. He sipped patiently, but he couldn't have tasted tea from drain cleaner just then.

Probably for the best. John made a frankly awful cup of tea, and always had. Sherlock had been suffering through what could barely be called "tea" courtesy of John Watson from the day five years and six months before, when he'd first moved in. Brand indiscriminate. Tea bag. Cold mug. Tea first. Ghastly. Sherlock strongly suspected that John's first foray into making tea had either been as a bachelor at university or during his first tour of duty, and that either way the emphasis had been on "hot" and "caffeine" and not "drinkable". He glanced down at the contents of the mug, murky as the bottom of a loch. Another sip. Still no taste.

A burst of cheerful spring breeze fluffed out the bedroom curtain, just as if nothing was the matter, nothing was wrong, nothing had changed. Somewhere on the stairs, Smudge meowed plaintively. Where was everyone? And why hadn't anyone fed her yet?

~~o0o~~

Molly and Charlie were the first to arrive.

Anne would take much longer, Sherlock surmised, making himself get up from the bed and put one foot in front of the other until he was in the kitchen. Molly stood near the table, Charlie in one arm, the other around John. She was nuzzled into his chest and Sherlock, in a moment of illumination, saw...

Was John _crying?_

Of course, it must have been that he'd seen John cry before... hadn't he? His mind flickered back over their adventures together. Kidnapped by the Tong? John had made a smart remark about a second date with that obnoxiously clever female person who'd managed to get herself kidnapped with him. Bomb vest. Moriarty. Visibly stressed, yes, but he'd managed to keep himself together much better than the others of Moriarty's victims. He'd come closer to tears when they'd had that... disagreement over whether caring about people would help save them. True, John had been _distressed_ when Sherlock had finally pulled him out of the lab experiment at Baskerville, but he hadn't been _crying, _and he hadn't been crying on the occasion he'd... talked to him... on the roof of Barts, either. He _might_ have been crying on the phone the night after his father's death, but that was difficult to deduce, and Molly would never divulge it as a fact. No need for emotional excesses about the Edalji case or Addie Bartlett...

Yes, there had been a time once. Furtive, angry, shamed tears for a friend he thought had committed suicide, shed in what he'd thought was total solitude.

Sherlock was still standing near the refrigerator, staring, when Molly noticed him. She released John and gently handed an obliviously placid Charlie over to him, and John hoisted her in one arm, swiping the inner corners of his eyes with the other thumb. And then Molly was in Sherlock's arms. Only she wasn't; it took him a few seconds to register that, so much as possible, he was in hers. He lost his balance and swayed backwards, partly because of his fuzzy head and partly because Smudge had come to the flat looking for company and food and had slid up behind his knees. He staggered back a step, feeling Molly's grip on him tighten.

She heaved a sob into his chest.

And looking across at John, Sherlock had no idea if he was meant to be comforting the Watsons, or if they were meant to be comforting him.

~~o0o~~

Greg Lestrade arrived nearly half an hour later, dressed in the sort of shirt and suit combination he wore to work. He was little emotion and all business, telling John what he needed to do from a legal perspective.

"Best not do anything until the sister arrives," he muttered into his chest. "You've got five days to register this, so there's no hurry."

Sherlock gave a brief snort of contempt. 'This.' Lestrade knew better than to use euphemisms like that. And if he said it and kept saying it, over and over, maybe it would start to make sense and seem real. _Mrs Hudson is dead._

"But then you'll need to contact the coroner," Lestrade went on. "If she hasn't been under a treating doctor in a while, they may want to..." He paused, waving his hand vaguely. "Yeah."

"Perform an autopsy," Sherlock said bluntly.

"Yeah. Well, I don't know. They might want to. Like I said, that's not something you have to worry about, Sherlock."

_I 'don't have to worry about' _it? In what universe, Sherlock thought, should he not worry about something like _that? _He viciously fought off an image of Mrs. Hudson's internal organs being systematically removed, examined, and returned to her like a macabre jigsaw puzzle. From the sofa, at least a mile away, Lestrade was still talking _oh God will he just bloody shut up so I can think?_

"Do you know if she had any requests about a funeral?" Sherlock heard him ask John next.

"No idea," John said. "We never really talked about it. Maybe it's in her will somewhere."

"Which is where?"

"At the bank, I hope." John sat on the sofa, Charlie on his lap and Molly nestled into one side. She was crying quietly, as Molly did everything; as if she was afraid that making too much noise with her emotions might inconvenience someone. John reached for her hand without looking at her and squeezed it. "She, uh. She said she put a codicil in it when Charlie was born," he said. "She kept it here, at first. I told her. I told her it wasn't really safe like that, and she should put it with someone who'd keep it safe for her, in case the flat burned down..."

Something in Sherlock's head finally capitulated. Standing up, he somehow traversed the great distance to the kitchen, swiping his keys and wallet from where they sat on the table. "Going out," he muttered without meeting anyone's gaze. "Need some air."

"Now?" John stood up.

Sherlock rounded on him. "I want _privacy," _he snarled.

Perfectly ordinary psychological need, privacy. Logical. Expected. Appropriate for the situation at hand, so far as Sherlock understood such things. But John stood there in front of the sofa for what felt like a long time, looking at Sherlock as if he'd just made one of his _not good _speeches. Then he swallowed twice.

"I know," he finally said. "But Sherlock, you know you can't wander off on your own. Not when you -"

"John," Molly broke in quietly.

John glanced down at Molly without speaking. Sherlock heard no more objections from him, or from Lestrade, as he made his way around the latter and reached for the living room door. Stumbling down the steps to the street door, he heard the low voices he'd left behind continuing. They were planning a funeral, or an autopsy, or something.

Living room.

How gloriously appropriate.

Without glancing toward the door of Mrs. Hudson's flat, he pulled the street door open and stepped out into the clear, cool spring morning. Then he started walking up toward the station, holding out his hand to hail the first available cab.


	3. Chapter 3

Forty-three minutes later, Mycroft Holmes was inspecting himself in the hall mirror of his Chelsea Harbour apartment prior to leaving for work.

_Must really do something about those grey hairs, _he reflected unhappily, swiping the thinning hair above his temples. It was unfair enough that he'd inherited male pattern baldness from the Devereaux side of the family, and that it had merrily skipped his little brother by; it was an insult of fate that he was quite grey as well. Besides any other considerations about his appearance, Mycroft thought it an appalling oversight to spend a fortune on _haute couture_ tailored suits and leave one's hair a disaster.

But somehow, both his clothes and his hair were becoming less and less important to him these days. Perhaps it was that he had nobody to impress; but then, he'd conceded, he'd been dyeing his hair since the age of thirty-six, and he'd had nobody to impress back then, either.

It was a long journey from the penthouse apartment to the ground floor; as he stepped out of the lift, Mycroft glanced toward the clear bullet-proof security doors of the lobby and saw Sherlock standing there. Or rather, he was leaning against one of the support pillars with one hand. The other was in his jacket pocket.

Mycroft frowned. Bypassing his intended route to the underground carpark, he swiped the security doors and let himself out. Sherlock looked up.

"Sorry," he blurted out. "I can't remember the _bloody security code,_ I don't have my phone, and your porter wouldn't contact you for me."

A one-second scan told Mycroft all he needed to know as to why Sherlock couldn't remember a six-digit code, and why the porter refused to contact him on Sherlock's behalf. His pupils were the size of pinheads.

Dropping his umbrella, Mycroft rushed over, grasping Sherlock's shoulder and giving him a rough little shake. "Sherlock?" he demanded anxiously. The unhelpful porter was well within earshot, standing as if at attention - he was, in fact, ex-military - but Mycroft was beyond caring what he thought just then. "Sherlock, what did you do? What have you taken?"

"Oh, shut up." Sherlock shut his eyes, as if to hide the evidence. "Prescription only, I assure you. Mrs. Hudson died this morning. John is being very annoying. I need somewhere to sleep."

Without further discussion, Mycroft pulled Sherlock back into the lift with him for another long journey toward the penthouse. Sherlock flopped down against the far wall, eyes shut, breath heavy and clumsy, and Mycroft prayed to whatever god would take pity on him both that their journey would be a private one and that Sherlock wouldn't vomit in the lift compartment. He was in luck in both respects; at last he fumbled with his key to get back into the apartment.

"Prescription drugs, then," he said as soon as he'd shut the door behind them. He cupped Sherlock's chin with one hand and lifted his eyelids in turn with the other. "That's a new one ..."

Sherlock wrenched at his wrists and shoved him off with surprising strength "I _have _a bloody prescription. Ask John if you don't believe me," he said, slurring his words a little. "Need sleep. Yes. Fine."

He stalked past Mycroft, crossing the foyer and throwing the door of the second bedroom open. A second later, he slammed it behind him, and Mycroft heard a dull thud that indicated Sherlock had just thrown himself on the bed face-first.

He drew his phone out of his pocket, intending to call Leonard Dawe, his personal assistant, to tell him that he wouldn't be in the office that morning. At the last second, he decided to call John Watson's mobile instead.

John's usual habit was to answer his phone in two rings. This time, he finally answered after four of them. This betokened that he, too, considered the passing of Martha Hudson a tragedy. "Mycroft?"

"Yes," he clipped, slightly alarmed at how hoarse and lifeless John sounded. "I suspect you're wondering where Sherlock is. He's here with me at the apartment."

There was a brief silence on the line. "Is he okay?"

"He's under the influence of what he claims are prescription drugs," Mycroft said. "Do I need to phone an ambulance?"

"He's doubled his dose - but that was over an hour ago, and I think it was an accident. It shouldn't hospitalise him. Did he walk in on his own?"

"Yes."

"Then he's over the worst of it, so it's probably best if you just let him sleep it off. Don't provoke him, Mycroft. We've had some bad news here this morning."

"Yes, I've heard. Your sister Harriet was fond of Mrs Hudson, too, I believe."

"Shit, don't remind me," John groaned. In the background of the call, Mycroft could hear Charlie giggling, a sound almost horrifically inappropriate for the moment. "I need to go and tell her in person," John said. "I hope to God she doesn't fall off the wagon again."

"Let me know if I can assist in that respect. In the meantime, I'll send someone around to retrieve some things for Sherlock, including whatever medication he needs to take."

"I'll throw some of his things together for you." Mycroft thought he detected a deep but well-hidden sigh in John's weary tones.

"I'll keep in touch," he said. "Oh, and John..."

"Yeah?"

Mycroft dithered. "I'm sorry for your loss," he finally made himself say. "Do let me know if I can help."

John took a few seconds to reply. "Thank you," he said finally. "Look after Sherlock, okay?"

Mycroft let the line drop without saying it aloud: _I will._

~~o0o~~

With that embarrassing display of sentiment over, Mycroft had the much more businesslike task of calling in for work. Leonard Dawe had no personal tragedies to contend with that morning, and picked up his mobile phone almost immediately. "Sir?"

"I'm afraid I won't be in the office today, and perhaps not tomorrow," Mycroft said in as matter-of-fact tones as he could manage. "You have your instructions to proceed without me."

"Yes, sir."

"I need you to go over to 221B Baker Street in about an hour and tell them you're there to pick up some personal items for my brother. They'll know what you're referring to. Bring them back here for me as soon as possible, and then proceed to the office."

"Certainly, sir."

"Thank you." Mycroft was about to hang up when something stopped him, and he put the phone back to his ear. "Leonard," he said, "I'm afraid there's been a death in the family... well. A family friend. My brother's landlady, as a matter of fact, but he was very fond of her."

"I'm sorry for your loss, sir."

"I'm not very familiar with social customs surrounding deaths. What sort of gestures toward the grieving would be appropriate?"

Leonard paused, but he was thinking, not shocked. It was the only reason Mycroft had seen fit to ask him at all - no matter what he'd asked Leonard to weigh in on or, indeed, do, the older man had never so much as turned a hair at it. It was an older Establishment attitude Mycroft knew well. To admit oneself surprised, let alone disturbed or appalled, would be a shockingly gauche display of emotion.

"I think it depends on the persons involved, sir," Leonard said finally. "One usually offers one's sympathies, of course, though not in person unless one knows the grieving persons well. Close family often request privacy. Telegrams, cards or phone calls are appropriate, as are sent flowers, food, and offers of domestic assistance."

Mycroft ruminated. Leonard was a man of discretion and good taste.

"Please take something... appropriate... with you when you go to collect my brother's things," he said. "Try not to bring flowers. I've a feeling the grieving party might hit you for it."

~~o0o~~

Sherlock was silent behind the spare-room door all day, except for the on-and-off snuffles that indicated he was wavering in and out of a sedated sleep. He emerged twice to traverse the few feet between the bedroom and bathroom, and grudgingly accepted a cup of tea on his way back the second time, but Mycroft ate dinner and supper alone that evening.

Having no company to speak of, after the dishwasher was stacked and the table cleared Mycroft gave over to the task of amusing himself. Television was a guilty pleasure of his, though he usually tried to restrict his viewing to documentaries and the odd crime drama on ITV. He found the latter much more interesting than real-life crimes. Real life was predictable, but the perpetrators in Endeavour often seemed to be either completely arbitrary or dependent on how famous the actor playing them was, and what they had been paid for appearing. As such, Mycroft had more difficulty picking the imaginary perpetrator on a TV show than he did a real one.

Tonight's selection, however, was meagre even for a Thursday night. Seventeen minutes into the piece - set in the Northumberland of the 1970s, and very obviously filmed in the Lancashire of the 1990s - he had already realised the guilty parties were obvious and the crime was boring. Besides, he'd spent most of the day idle, and he had work to do that wouldn't disappear if he ignored it.

It took him a few moments to hunt behind the sofa cushion for the remote; he'd finally turned the television off and had just risen when he heard it.

_Oh, Sherlock..._

Completely disregarding any desire or right to privacy his brother might have had, Mycroft got up, crossed the hall and opened the bedroom door. Golden light threw itself on Sherlock, who was sitting on the bed. He'd removed his shoes, but was still wearing his jacket and watch. "Go away," he choked, without removing his hands from his face. "This is embarrassing..."

Mycroft sank down on the mattress beside him, sitting in silence for a minute while he debated what to say. "You take things too much to heart," he finally said. "She was an elderly lady, and she wasn't going to live forever. This is what happens, Sherlock, when you let yourself get too attached to people. They leave. They die. They're horribly unreliable. I've had those opinions confirmed time and again."

"I'm sorry," Sherlock said, swiping aggressively at his tears. "Are you under the honest impression that you're being _comforting?"_

"I'm trying to be practical."

"I don't want your practicality..."

Mycroft looked around the shadowy room in embarrassment as Sherlock shuddered through a series of breathless hiccoughs. "Well, I don't suppose you want my comfort, either," he said quietly. "I'm afraid I'm quite incompetent in that area." He paused. "How did it happen?"

"In her sleep. I wasn't there..."

Mycroft nodded. "So she didn't suffer, then," he said. "That should be of some comfort to you."

"I wasn't there..."

"'Being there' is overrated, let me assure you."

Mycroft swallowed heavily, despite himself. He'd never allowed himself to get too fond of his mother, and she'd certainly never encouraged either of her sons to become too fond of her. All the same, he'd been fulfilling the duties of a firstborn son and walking her back to her car after a stiff, but not acrimonious, visit to his office twenty-one years before when she'd suffered a massive stroke mid-sentence. He'd been too far away and too slow to catch her before she fell, but that had surely not made much difference to her, since the later verdict was that she was dead before she'd hit the bitumen.

"You were there," Sherlock said, one hand resting on his flushed temple. "When Mummy..."

"Yes."

"Did it hurt?"

Mycroft frowned. "No, Sherlock," he said patiently. "You know that."

"I meant, did it hurt _you."_

Mycroft splayed his fingers across his knees and thought about this for a few seconds. Beside him, Sherlock was rocking himself very slightly, and he frowned. To his knowledge, Sherlock hadn't done that since he'd been a boy. "Yes," he said finally. "Yes, it hurt."

"When does it stop hurting?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. But wounds fade into scars," Mycroft said, glancing down at his hands. "And scars are ugly, but they seldom hurt. You learn to forget about it for long enough to carry on with business as usual, Sherlock. That's all."

Sherlock lifted his head, and Mycroft became uncomfortably aware of those lamp-like grey eyes silently interrogating him. "Do you know what," Sherlock finally said, "I think I've had enough of your company just now."

"I understand." Mycroft rose.

"No you don't," Sherlock spat at him. "You understand this about as much as Smudge does."

"... Smudge?"

"Mrs. Hudson's _cat."_ Sherlock threw himself down on the mattress, bringing one arm up to his forehead. "I said, go away."

"Soon," Mycroft promised, hovering in the doorway. "Once you've had something to eat and drink... stop scowling at me like a child, Sherlock. You've given us all enough health scares in the last six months, and neither John Watson nor I are in any mind or mood to deal with another. You are not a Victorian heroine. Besides, starving oneself may be very dramatic and romantic, but it won't do Martha Hudson any good."


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock picked up his cold slice of buttered toast and eyed it resentfully, as if wondering how on earth toast figured into this strange new world without Mrs. Hudson and her bizarre babble in it. He bit into it with a shudder, chewing mechanically, aware that Mycroft was sitting across the table, pretending to read the morning paper but actually watching the process carefully.

"Last night," Sherlock mumbled at last.

Mycroft looked up from the paper. "I do wish you'd speak in complete sentences," he said. "And preferably not with your mouth full."

Sherlock wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, not because he needed to, but because he knew that it drove Mycroft up the wall. "Then we're agreed that... my behaviour... last night never happened," he said, swallowing.

"It so emphatically did not happen that I've no idea what you're even talking about," Mycroft said serenely, going back to reading. "What do you make of this, Sherlock? According to the Guardian, the day before yesterday, construction workers near London Bridge left a steel demolition ball aloft on a crane one hundred feet in the air. The ball itself weighed two and a half tonnes."

"So?" Sherlock took another listless bite of his toast.

"So the following morning it had completely disappeared, with no evidence of where it went or who took it." *

"And I imagine you've already discovered the solution to this."

"Naturally."

"And you want me to investigate it?"

"No, I want you to solve it right here at this table. Very simple, once you see it."

Sherlock screwed his eyes up for a few seconds and exhaled, thinking hard. An obvious ploy on the part of Mycroft: _concentrate on the work._

_Demolition ball. London Bridge. One hundred feet. Two and a half tonnes._

"Possibly the work of a rival construction company," he finally said. "But I very much doubt it. There's a lot of traffic in that area, making it virtually impossible for anyone to commit such a crime unseen or unnoticed, even in the early hours of the morning."

"Yes. Therefore...?"

"Therefore the crime didn't happen." Sherlock gulped his coffee. "Nobody stole the demolition ball, because it was never left up there in the first place. No construction company would do that - it's a violation of occupational health and safety, and highly illegal. When they told everyone the ball had gone missing in the night, commuters and patrons of local business began to 'remember' seeing the ball suspended the night before. But it was never there."

"And?"

"And Andover Towers is a high-profile construction that has carried a lot of controversy with it. Publicity stunt. End of story."

"Rather." Mycroft shut the paper and put it on the table, reaching out for his own coffee.

* * *

Just over an hour later, Sherlock slithered out of a cab idling on the kerb of the little suburban house where John and Molly had been living together for the past three years. It had been a long and expensive trip, since his first assumption had been that everybody was still at Baker Street. When he'd gone there, though, Anne Morecombe - younger sister of Mrs. Hudson, and a large, sonsy, emotional woman - had told him that so far as she knew, nobody had been there that morning, though they'd been there past midnight the night before.

Sherlock reached into his pocket for the key to the front door; then, thinking better of it, rang the doorbell instead. After a few seconds he heard quick footfalls in the hall, and then the wrench of the door handle.

John looked exactly as Sherlock expected him to: scrupulously neat and clearly just out of the shower, judging by his slightly-damp hair and the strong smell of Ivory soap that attended him. And he looked like he hadn't slept in three weeks.

"Sherlock," he said blankly, without moving aside to let him in.

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I left you with... all this... yesterday," he said, waving one hand vaguely. "I shouldn't have. I want to help. What do you want me to do...?"

John's shoulders dropped. "Sherlock -"

"I'm not a child," Sherlock groaned, shutting his eyes. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

"Come in." John beckoned to him and moved aside, leaning over to shut the door behind him. From the sounds of things, Molly was upstairs with Charlie. But Sherlock detected another feminine scent in the house, one not associated with Molly. It was a cheap brand of women's moisturiser, probably Natio. It indicated that Harry was not only somewhere around, but she'd stayed there the night before.

Sherlock followed John into the kitchen, but he neither spoke nor moved on into the living room to sit down. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and watched John, waiting for an answer.

"Uh." John ran one hand over his jaw, thinking. "Okay. Molly and I are going with Anne to the funeral home this afternoon," he finally said. "We were going to take Harry and Charlie with us. We can't leave Harry to look after Charlie on her own, and I don't think it's a good idea to take Charlie and leave Harry here. Will you just stay here with them? You don't really have to do anything, except make sure Harry's on this side of sane and not sneaking a drink when you're not looking." He went to the kettle, without taking the trouble to ask Sherlock if he wanted coffee.

"What about Charlie?" Sherlock asked.

"Don't panic; you don't have to worry about that part. Harry knows what to do with her, when she's on the rails."

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "How do you know I won't relapse myself?" he asked, with no hint of sarcasm.

John looked up at him. "Because yesterday, I was absolutely sure you were going to end up getting high with your Homeless Network friends under a bridge somewhere," he said. "And you went to your brother instead."

Since this was undeniably the right answer, Sherlock shut his mouth. As a way of filling the silence he looked around, noting that Harry had spent all morning cleaning. The very light streaks on the kitchen floor, visible only when the light hit them at a certain angle, were a dead giveway. North to south. Both John and Molly used the mop in strokes that went from west to east, and Sherlock ruminated on this for a second. He couldn't remember for the life of him which direction John had used a mop when they had lived together at Baker Street, but he suspected it had been north to south. John had adapted innate habits to suit his wife's housekeeping.

A sudden blur of brindle charged into his peripheral vision and Toby, with a joyful meow, leapt up onto his knees before Sherlock could stop him.

"Are you giving a eulogy?" Sherlock ignored Toby.

John shook his head, then flinched as one of the cups he held sloshed hot coffee all over his hand. "Mrs. Hudson's nephew is doing that," he said, putting both cups down again and grabbing a nearby dishcloth.

Sherlock's jaw dropped open, as if this constituted some sort of upset in the universal order of things. "That's ludicrous," he protested. "I don't even think I've ever heard Mrs. Hudson mention her nephew."

"She did, once or twice, but I don't get the impression they were very close."

"So why not you?"

"Because Anne didn't ask me, and if I'm honest, 'cause I don't want to. I've given enough eulogies in the last twelve months to last a lifetime, thanks very much." John leaned over and handed one cup to Sherlock, who took it and sipped without reservations. John was much better at instant coffee than he was at tea. "How are you feeling?" John asked him. "I mean, physically. Mycroft said you were pretty out of it when you got to his place yesterday."

"I'm fine," Sherlock said absently, taking another sip of his coffee. He looked down at the warm, purring mass of tabby cat who was moulting all over his trousers. "Why is your cat sitting on me?"

John smiled. "He does that," he said. "Spent all last night on Molly's lap, when he usually goes for mine. I don't know. I could go and get Charlie if you prefer."

Sherlock huffed and gingerly shifted his legs a little; both he and John looked up at the tread of soft, bare feet in the doorway. Harry stood there, dressed down in jeans and an old t-shirt. Her face was blotchy and her eyes bloodshot.

"Hi," she croaked to Sherlock. "No, John, I'm still not bloody drunk, more's the pity."

"I sympathise," Sherlock said before John could open his mouth.

"What?"

"I've spent a large part of the last twenty-four hours telling everyone I'm not bloody high."

She smiled weakly at him. "John," she said, "Molly's crying again. Go up and give her a hug?"

John, looking alarmed, disappeared up the staircase. Harry sat down next to Sherlock and brushed her sandy, disobedient hair back from her forehead. "He's going to kill me for lying about that," she remarked, reaching across Sherlock's lap to stroke Toby's furry head.

"Yes, noted," Sherlock said.

"Of course you noted it."

"So why lie?"

"I figured _John_ could do with a hug, but hell will freeze over before he ever asks for one, so..." She shrugged. "He doesn't want you to know this," she said. "But we had a call from the coroner an hour ago."

Sherlock looked up swiftly. "And?" he demanded.

"So they did an autopsy this morning, and it was heart failure, like John thought. She was seventy-seven, Sherlock, though if I look that good at seventy-seven I'll be a happy woman. But she didn't suffer. Just went to sleep and never woke up, quick and easy." She had been giving her attention to Toby, but now looked up at him, so directly that he felt himself mentally shrink. "I'm glad you're back," she said. "John didn't sleep last night. He was worried about you."

Sherlock's mouth twitched. "He worries about everyone," he protested.

"True," Harry conceded. "He looks after everyone, too. But who looks after him?"

* * *

Mrs. Hudson was laid to rest two days later, in a white casket decked in chrysanthemums of cream, wine, and coral pink. Anne had chosen the flowers for the funeral, but John, looking at the coffin and trying not to think about what was inside it, remembered the second Mother's Day he'd been living at Baker Street, not long before Sherlock had himself "died". Embarrassed, he'd brought Mrs. Hudson a big, cheerful bouquet of chrysanthemums in crimson and yellow. A thoughtless thing, really, bought from a petrol station or somewhere; he couldn't even remember now. Their stems had been dank with water they'd been sitting in too long, their blooms drooping low beyond the pink tissue paper they were wrapped in. _Would it... would it be okay if I gave you these?_

Mrs. Hudson had accepted them, as goofy and pleased as a girl with her first beau. _Chrysanthemums are such lovely flowers, _she'd gushed at him. _They look like big smiling faces, especially the yellow ones. Don't you think?_

John had little patience with the commentary trotted out at just about every funeral he'd ever been to: the deceased had been so "full of life." But this time, no other phrase would do. Mrs. Hudson had been more full of the sheer joy of being alive than any other person he'd ever met.

Anne Morecombe sat in the front pew, dressed in a nicely-tailored suit of claret velvet. Looking at her, John thought to himself that both sisters had good taste in clothes and style was obviously a family thing, though in other respects they were not noticeably alike. Anne was flanked by her son and daughter, Tim and Eugenia; colourless, middle-aged and middle-class, and no doubt lacking any of their late aunt's spark or spirit. John began encouraging Harry into the pew behind when Anne, glancing over her shoulder, saw them and stood up.

"No, no," she said gently, pressing a soggy, bunched-up tissue against her wet eyelashes with one hand and reaching out for Sherlock's arm with the other. "No, Lou wouldn't like that. Come and sit here with us, all of you."

As John shuffled obediently out of the pew to move up into the first one, he glanced back at the congregation of mourners. Quite a lot of them, he noticed with some surprise, were people he knew - Greg, Mel, Hayley, Jake. Even Matthew was sitting awkwardly beside his future stepmother, and John couldn't remember Matthew ever being in the same space as Mrs. Hudson in his life. But then, he reminded himself, people attended a funeral not for the dead, but to show their support for the living. That explained mourners like Mike and Chrissy Stamford.

In the third-to-last row, Mycroft sat alone and aloof, fidgeting with his umbrella. John, sitting down between Sherlock and Molly, glanced at Sherlock. He was mentally busy, or perhaps mentally blank. He stared into space, pallid and grim, tweaking idly at one sleeve; John realised he hadn't yet noticed his brother was there, and decided not to point him out. There lay perilous waters. And anyhow, the opening strains of Frank Sinatra's _Young at Heart _had just started to play, indicating the beginning of the celebration of the life of Martha Louise Hudson.

* * *

_* This is also an alleged real incident, happening in Indianapolis in 1974._


	5. Chapter 5

The contents of Mrs Hudson's will came to light barely a week after the funeral. In it, she had left all three flats of 221 Baker Street to Sherlock Holmes, wholly and outright.

_I'm sorry to not divide the property among you boys equally, _she had written. _But you can't cut a building down the middle and split it in half, can you? when my mother left the property to Anne and me we had a dreadful fight over whether it would be sold or whether I would buy Anne's share, and I don't want you boys to fight over a house. It does keep me up at night wondering where and how Sherlock will live if anything ever happens to me, so this puts my mind at ease._

_But all the same, I do still worry what will happen to Harry when I'm gone. She might not always be able to live in the house she has now. You will look after her, won't you, Sherlock? Three flats is more than enough room for you both, I think._

_John, I hope you're not offended, dear. I know that since all that dreadful business when Sherlock came back, things have been a little tight for you and Molly. I've wanted to help you a bit with that but I know what it is when a man feels like he can't support his family on his own. My husband was just the same way. I hope I can leave you something though, and that you won't be offended. And it's a relief to know you'll take care of my computer things if I go suddenly._

Mrs. Hudson's "computer things" was a discreet little handwritten list of user names and passwords to various accounts that she wanted John to deactivate, since he "understood about computers."

"For God's sake," Sherlock snapped. "She could have left that business to _me_. You can't even type."

John smiled tiredly. "I think," he said, looking over the list of instructions that also included wiping her hard drive of its contents, "that she didn't ask you to do it because she didn't want you nosing around in her Ebay account."

"Oh, please. I've been monitoring her Ebay purchases for the past two years."

Aside from the small burden of erasing her online life, Mrs. Hudson had also left John and Molly the combined cash worth of her estate, minus some relatively small legacies to Anne, Tim, Eugenia and another set of nieces and nephews, the three children of her long-deceased brother, Bert. The Watson's portion was, the solicitor said, worth nearly six figures. There was also a smaller trust fund for Charlie, to be accessed at her discretion when she turned eighteen.

"But she left no provision for poor old Smudge," John remarked, once they'd come home from the solicitors and were gathered around in 221B. The dusky-coloured cat in question was curled up on Sherlock's sofa, purring loudly. On hearing her name, she snapped to attention for a second, then sank back down and shut her eyes again.

"Unfortunately, I can't take her," Anne said. She was sitting in John's old armchair, leaving John himself to hover in the kitchen archway with a mug of coffee in his hands. "I don't particularly like cats, and even if I did, my husband's allergic."

John glanced at Greg, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. He turned instead to Molly. She too was sitting on the sofa, running her fingers through Smudge's thick, soft fur. There was really no point in actually _asking _her. He had a feeling that if he suggested Smudge be sent to an animal shelter, he'd be sleeping on the sofa for the next year. "I suppose we can take her," he said reluctantly. "I mean, what's one more, right?"

But while he was fond of his own cats, John had no strong opinions about Smudge. He and Molly had, they candidly admitted, made a mistake when they'd chosen her as the companion cat for an elderly lady. She was aloof and independent, and tolerated other people rather than craving human attention. He glanced down at her, watching as she swatted her tail in annoyance that even Molly was petting her.

"So you think I'm incapable of looking after a cat?" Sherlock suddenly asked from the refuge of his armchair.

John blinked at him in surprise. "I didn't think you liked cats," he responded. "You don't like ours."

"Yes, you'll note that I didn't ask whether you thought I _liked _cats."

"Well..." John glanced at Molly again. "No, I guess keeping a cat isn't exactly _hard, _but I've got to admit, I'm having trouble picturing you cleaning out her litter box."

Greg snorted into his cup of coffee. John did not even notice; he was looking over at Sherlock, frowning slightly as he tried to puzzle out this new development in affairs.

"But seriously," he said. "You actually _want_ to keep her yourself?"

~o0o~

"I'm not sure about this," Molly said to her husband in bed that night, with her own cats nestled so peacefully around her that John, who had just come up at ten past midnight, could barely get into bed beside her.

"About what?"

"Sherlock keeping Smudge. I mean, he doesn't even like cats."

"Yeah, I've got a feeling he likes her more than he'll admit," John said.

"What is it with men and cats?" Molly asked. "Pretending they don't like them, when they do."

"It's a man thing. I can't really explain it." John nudged Casper aside slightly. "Look, I think it's a good idea for everyone. We don't have to take in another cat who might fight with the other two, Smudge doesn't need to leave Baker Street, and Sherlock's got a reason to get up in the morning."

Molly was staring at him. "You really think...?"

John smiled. "He seriously wanted to know which childproof locks I preferred on his cupboard doors," he pointed out. "He's a perfectionist about things like that. He and Smudge will get on just fine."

* * *

Anne Morecombe had chosen her older sister's last resting place. The death week had been no time or place for either Sherlock or John to protest over the location; and now, with a glossy headstone and mound of dirt marking the spot, there seemed no point in protesting it now, either. It was a full eighteen days after Mrs. Hudson had so abruptly left the world that John reluctantly suggested they should go out and visit the spot. Sherlock had agreed, without enthusiasm; all had gone according to procedure until they'd actually arrived at the cemetery and seen, from afar, the neat little tombstone and heap of dirt and dead flowers laid out before it. Sherlock had come to a dead halt.

"My grave was very close to here," he remarked dully.

"Uh, yes." John pointed. "Just over there."

The headstone that had once borne Sherlock Holmes's name had been removed long ago, but John remembered just then that James Moriarty was still buried six feet under it. The revulsion hit him like a wave. If he had his way, Moriarty would be dug up and thrown into the sea, or hung up in a gibbet for birds to pick at his bones. A suitable ending for all traitors. He said nothing, though, leading the way over to Mrs Hudson's grave. They both looked at it for several minutes in silence; neither had brought anything to place on it, and the flowers from the funeral had crumbled into powder.

For two years, John had begged Sherlock, first aloud, then silently, to stop being dead. Perhaps, he reflected bitterly to himself, something deep in his brain had already clicked, even on that horrible day at Barts, and he was begging for something he knew Sherlock could give him. He had no such demands of Martha Hudson.

Sherlock took a sudden breath. "So I've been doing some research," he said in practical tones.

John blinked. "On what?"

"Cats. Compared to dogs and horses, they are absurdly easy to look after."

John tilted his head slightly in curiosity. Why would Sherlock be researching dogs and horses? Then he remembered hearing Sherlock mention, long ago, that Mycroft had once had a horse, a splendid bay Arab mare named Dirayat. He'd sold her when he became too busy to ride regularly; Sherlock had begged to keep her instead, but he'd been twelve at the time and firmly overruled. He'd had a dog, though, as a child.

He hadn't been researching dogs and horses. He was remembering caring for the closest things to pets he'd ever had before Smudge.

"So Smudge hasn't electrocuted herself chewing on the TV cord, then?" John asked lightly.

"What sort of an idiot cat would do that?"

"Casper."

Sherlock snorted, then fell silent, contemplating the headstone in front of him. "John..."

"Mmm?"

"What the hell am I going to do now?"

John opened his mouth to reply; some masculine translation of _but there are so many of us left who love you. _At the last second, though, he realised that Sherlock wasn't talking about what he was going to do emotionally.

It had taken less than a week of living at Baker Street for the first time for John to discover that Sherlock had no idea, none at all, about most common domestic skills. The few abilities he had in and around the home were highly specific and oddly diverse: he could make tea 'properly', carve a goose, and open and serve bottled champagne without creating a mess. But as for the rest of it, John was left wondering what on earth he'd done when he'd lived at the Montague Street flat before - hired a maid?

He distinctly remembered the rainy February morning, back in those very early days of learning to share a living space together, when Sherlock had opened his bedroom door without knocking and found him making the bed. Sherlock had stood in the doorway and blatantly stared at the process, until John had tucked in the last corner and turned around. _Well, who did you think would make my bed?_

Then he'd realised that Mrs. Hudson made Sherlock's bed. Every morning.

He couldn't iron. Couldn't operate a clothes washer or a dryer. Made such slapdash efforts at the dishes that both John and Mrs Hudson, exasperated at having to wash everything twice-over, eventually told him to stop even trying. He'd never dusted or polished or vacuumed or lit a fire in the fireplace. Mrs Hudson had taken care of all his domestic needs, just as Mycroft still engineered his personal finances.

He had no idea how to _live _on his own.

"You'll be fine," John finally said automatically. He patted Sherlock's shoulder briefly, then withdrew his hand in brief confusion that he'd decided to do that. "More than fine. You're a genius. You'll pick things up."

~o0o~

They parted at the cemetery gate, each heading for home. Sherlock climbed the stairs without glancing at the front door of the vacant flat 221A, and unlocked the door of his own flat. On opening it, he found Smudge curled up in his armchair, looking calmly at him.

"Okay," he said aloud, removing his coat and hanging it from its place on the door. "In the interest of fairness, I'm going to make this perfectly clear. I don't like you. But I _will _continue to feed you. Will that be sufficient?"

Smudge yawned and splayed her paws; Sherlock muttered something unpleasant about the value of all things feline and went to the refrigerator. He had never before had a problem handling all sorts of organs and amputated digits in the name of science, but he shuddered at having to handle raw chicken. He managed, however, to not amputate his own fingers, and once Smudge was ungratefully wolfing down her evening meal, he sank down into his armchair.

The silence from the flat downstairs was deafening.

He sat in the shadowy living room for a few minutes, trying to grasp the idea that once the official legalities had been dealt with, he was, for the very first time in his life, sitting in his own house. For it had once been a house, he felt, in years well before Mrs Hudson had ever been thought of...

With supreme effort, he threw considerations of his late landlady aside for the first time that day. But the vacant mental real-estate brought on another thought that had been playing with him.

~o0o~

A small part of him hoped Mycroft wouldn't answer the phone, even though he knew the only time he wouldn't pick up the phone to him would be if he was in serious trouble. When the line dropped in, Sherlock had a brief, violent impulse to hang up.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said, in tones that passed for pleasant. "How can I help?"

Sherlock silently noted it: _how can I help? _It had, by and large, replaced _what do you want? _Though, he thought bitterly, once he was finished having a Danger Year Mycroft would no doubt be back to his data-entry way of having a conversation.

"I need that phone number again," he said.

"'Please' wouldn't go astray," Mycroft said, after a pause so brief that few others but Sherlock could have noted it. "And what phone number might that be?"

Sherlock hissed a breath in through his teeth. "Stop being annoying," he demanded. "You know what."

"You want to contact our father?" he blurted out. "Now?"

"No time like the present," Sherlock said. "I could have a heart attack in my sleep tonight."

"Sherlock - "

"No, I'm not interested in him, Mycroft. Christabel."

More silence.

"Our father has made his position quite clear," Sherlock explained, clearing his throat. "I'm a world-famous detective, and you're practically running the country. He could easily find us if he wanted to make contact, and he's decided not to. But there's no evidence to suggest his daughter even knows that we exist."

"You'll kindly keep _my_ name out of this, thank you," Mycroft said stiffly. "And it may surprise you to learn that I don't have the number on hand right this minute."

It didn't surprise Sherlock, but he refrained from mentioning it. There was no way that Mycroft was going to leave contact information for an estranged branch of the family somewhere he would have easy access to it, or accidentally memorise it. He'd learned to brutally amputate all limbs of temptation from his life.

"I'll text it to you when I find it," he offered. "Will that do?"

"Will that be tonight?" Sherlock swore under his breath. That hadn't sounded eager. That had sounded _desperate._

"I doubt it."

All the same, Mycroft had either underestimated how long it would take to bring up contact information on Christabel Mohler, or he'd been galvanised into action. Forty minutes later Sherlock heard his phone bleep, but it was another ten minutes before he could bring himself to check Mycroft's text message.

~o0o~

Shortly past nine o'clock, he punched the numbers into his phone and put it to his ear. Shortly after ten in Berlin, but Sherlock didn't know what standard calling times were and wouldn't have heeded them if he had known. He listened to the line purr for a few seconds before there was a click and a woman efficiently stated: "Mohler."

Sherlock flinched. Harry Price had been right about one thing. Christabel's American accent was appalling, even mellowed as it was by faint tinges of English, French and German... and by this time he realised he'd been sitting silently on the line for nearly ten seconds.

"Hello?" she said, a little more forcefully. "Wer ist da?"

"You're Christabel Mohler?" tumbled out of his mouth.

"Yes," she said suspiciously, dashing half-formed hopes that he had the wrong number. "Who's this?"

"Uh." Sherlock opened his mouth again, but this time it was a few seconds before his voice followed. "I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"Sorry," she said. "You're who?"

"I'm your brother."


End file.
